The Pack

Last night, I went out to get a pack of what cigarettes. Because I'm moving to Japan.

Of course, they weren't for me. There are far too many great as-yet unknown ways of contracting cancerous tumors for me to spend my time attempting to procure one by pursuing that particular old-fashioned route. While I have been given a pack by a young woman who came all the way from Tokyo to Nagoya "just to give you this, since I saw you on TV", I have never actually purchased any myself. No, they were for this man. I shall call him Ken, because that wasn't his name. He was at my house. With what I can only assume was if not a friend, than at least a colleague, in the shape of Toby. Which wasn't his name, either. But still, two random guys were at my house. Which, yes, technically isn't my house. The lies!

Anyway, they were movers. Now I have some experience in dragging loads of stuff back and forth to Japan, but for all the times I've done it, I've never felt compelled to employ the services of two men and a huge truck. Well, ok, felt compelled, yes, actually done it, no. So it was me, Ken, Toby, and the truck. Which was stuck. Obviously.

It doth be in there good. Or bad, as it were.

Due to recent actual rains and various deities giving it the old college try to rain on my parade in a more poetic sense, Ken backed up over a patch of ground which, it turns out, wasn't really ground at all. Man, was that truck at an awkward angle while we waited for assistance in the form of a great big tow-truck.

The not-quite-right way up. And no, that's not my crap in there, thankfully.

None of this, of course, explains what I was doing purchasing saran-wrapped cancer on a stick. Or would that be in a stick? I'm not quite sure. Either way, they were for Ken, an excuse that when given to shop keepers across the land by nicotine-craving 13 year-olds has fallen on deaf ears. For me, it worked like a charm. Maybe it was because the old lady behind the register was busy screaming "If you're not going to make a purchase, just get out!" at what I can only assume was a group of nicotine-craving 13 year-olds.

So yes, the moral of this story kids? Stay in school. And while you're in school, feel free to say a prayer (as I imagine people in schools do) for all my junk, which is now slowly winging its way East. I hope. Maybe some of it will actually arrive, and some of that might actually not be broken. Hope, as they say, springs eternal.

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However, the above does little to explain my absence from the intertubes over the past month. That, you see, has to do with vacation, a subject surely far less interesting than that of trucks at weird angles, and also, cigarettes. So it follows it won't get as much space here. Suffice to say, vacation, in all its many, many forms, kicks ass. Seriously. If you haven't tried it, you really should. Sometime soon. It is, as they say in Japan, completely frikkin' お奨め.

I went to a place I had not been in a number of years that can only with the utmost difficulty be counted on one hand. And it was, as they say in Ireland, grand. And yes, I'm very much word-dropping to show off my globe-trotterianism. Anyway, here's what it looks like. One of these was shot during the day, the other was shot at sunset. For once, he tells the truth!

Sunset or midday? You be the judge!

Midday or sunset? It can't be both!

So now, as the sun sets on my time in Sweden (see what I did there? That's was what they call in Sweden a P3-segue) for what in all likelihood be almost a full year, I sit here, wondering... Not about the big questions, really, but more practical matters like how do I end this post? If you have any ideas, feel free to contact me, you do know the number. In the meantime, I'll be busy starting another new life in Japan. This time it's for real.